Lessons from Bugs

The cicada buzz is waning. Have you noticed? It was so loud this summer. Or it seemed so. That out-of-the-blue buzz that grows in intensity until it is really right in your head for a bit, and then tapers off to nothing. And then it starts again. In mid-July to late August, they buzz up a storm, with their zzzzzzZZZZZZZzzzzs overlapping one another until it’s just a cacophony of bug noise. They are strange, ancient things, those bugs. When I was a kid we called them locusts. But that was incorrect. Locusts are like grasshoppers while cicadas are actually related to crickets. And locusts don’t make the same noise. They rub their wings together to make a repetitive, rhythmic grind, sort of “ooohee, ooohee, ooohee.” But cicadas have a special organ in their bodies called a “tymbal” that creates their signature buzz. The organ looks like a seashell under the wings, and it contains a series of ribs that buckle one after the other when the cicada flexes its muscles. The rib buckle produces a click, and the clicks in rapid succession create the buzz. Think bendy straw. You can bend it back and forth and it makes snapping sounds. If you could push, pull, and twist a bendy straw hundreds of times a second, the sound of the clicks would be so close together that your ears would just hear a buzz. That’s how fast that speedy cicada can vibrate its tymbal. (Thanks to Kyle Schiber of the Chicago Nature Museum for this info.)

The bugs have gone through their regular cycle of egg, nymph, and adult. The ones we hear annually usually live three to five years. I was surprised by that. I always think bugs have short lives, like a few weeks. But these things are around for a long time. Some species, of course, live 17 years, waiting to emerge from the ground all at once in one of those cicada summers when they are everywhere. In listening to them this summer, I often mused that they don’t know what we humans are grappling with these days. They don’t know we’re frustrated, worried, weary, angry, discombobulated, and sad. They don’t know we have missed our reunions and vacations, and that we know people who have been sick. The stout buzzing creatures with buggy eyes are attached to the trees, laying eggs and making noise as always, unaware that their human cohabitants are having trouble. And like them, the trees have kept doing their thing, and are now starting into their fall wardrobe of reds and oranges. All things growing are moving away from the summer tenderness of brilliant color and soft petals on to the fall weariness, pushing seeds out now to keep the line alive as this year’s greens fade to browns. All is happening as usual, even as our lives are in a chronic state of unrest.

For the past many months, as this summer so stealthily has grown up and is now ready to leave, I have felt as if I am in a flooding river, barely able to get my feet down to the bottom that is rushing by at such a speed. My feet slam against the rocks that fly by, and I am just able to keep my nose out to breathe. The year is fleeing. There have been many times when I have had to concentrate not only on what day it is, but what time of year it is. All my anchors and hallmarks of regular life have been dispensed, canceled, and erased. I am hurtling down a river I don’t recognize. I don’t know where the rapids are, and I fear the falls. When will I see my boys again? Will they stay healthy? When will I sing with my friends again? How safe is my mother, and what kind of life is this for her as she nears 92? How are all my friends faring whom I never see or hear from or reach out to, even as I think of them and miss them? They are hurtling down the river, too, I know. We all are. We are exhausted and soaked and afraid. And no one knows when we will be able crawl onto the bank again.

But the cicadas are moving along. The monarchs are emerging. The geese are taking to the air in their V-shape more often, and the oak trees are letting loose ripe and ready acorns. The sun slips down the evening sky, issuing that odd golden light, and then just before it sinks away, bathing all in a magic and dark pink. As that last crescent is blotted out, the air shifts, markedly, to cool and then cold. Furnaces kick on now, and windows open all summer are pulled closed with chilly fingers. Despite all that has transpired, all that has been lost, all that has been missed, the year is definitely aging as always, winding on toward autumn and winter. There are times when I think it can’t be so. How is time rolling on so heartlessly? Can’t it stop and wait for us to catch up? To get our footing and find our way?

But it cannot. Of course. We have to keep riding along, taking things as they come, trying to find ways to love from afar, to accomplish things we didn’t expect to try at all, and to learn new paths to fun, to joy, to solace. In yoga practice, one tries to settle the mind and be “present.” We strive to live in that very moment, that very second, and to consider the gift of our place here, between the Earth and heaven. It’s not easy, being present. Thoughts elbow in, taking up brain space and causing one to consider such things as what to make for dinner or why people can’t be kinder to one another. But we acknowledge the thoughts and let them go, like helium balloons, and return to the present. It takes practice and effort. But the effect is a little rest. A little calm. A relief. So it’s worth it.

If the virus were the only trauma in our lives now, that would be enough. But as we go floundering, crashing down the river of human existence in a pandemic, we are beset with so much more. The hatred in the world is burning like the fires of the West and drenching like the hurricanes of the South. Fear is everywhere, and fear is powerful. It inspires paranoia, anger, stubbornness, and depression. We are afraid of getting sick, of loved ones getting sick, of being misunderstood, of failing, of feeling guilty. We see friends with such different perceptions and understanding, and feel let down by our differences. Somehow we have to go ahead and feel afraid and tired without the anger. Somehow we have to let down our shields of indignation and just allow the swords and arrows of all the terrible things go right into us. Feel them. Hurt because of them. Cry over them. Because then we can better understand. Our perception will be enhanced, and we will be able to see and perceive more for having released the fury and withstood the pain. It’s the oldest legend ever written, letting anger die and love win. Seems so easy.

The world is spinning on, and we have no choice but to ride. There are no reins to pull back or pause buttons to click. The cicada’s song is waning, and preparations are underway for its next phase. Perhaps there is comfort to be found in these things that continue on despite human distress. Perhaps there is peace in the normalcy of changing leaves and lowering temperatures and geese on the wing. We should try to be good. Try to be kind. Try to wait out this hardship and look forward to the day when we are through. When we hear the cicadas again, I hope we will be among one another, sharing space and laughs and music and touch.

When we hear the cicadas again.